Article from the St Paul Daily Dirge*: In the 1930s while promoting his Tarzan films, Jonny visited Phalen Beach. True story! For those of you skewing on the younger side of 50 who may not remember Jonny, he won three gold medals at the 1924 Olympic Games in PARIS and added a bronze in men’s water polo. He would win two more Olympic gold medals in 1928 in Amsterdam and competed again on the U.S. water polo team that placed seventh. He went on to play Tarzan, portraying the famous character in 12 different movies from 1932 until 1948.
What you may not know, dear readers, is that Jonny saved many peoples’ lives throughout his own life including in 1927 while training for the Chicago Marathon, Johnny saved 11 people from drowning after a boat accident. Which leads us to ask – was Jonny responsible for St. Paul being the first park system to offer free swimming lessons in 2024? Seems like an awfully big coincidence that 100 years almost to the day after Jonny won GOLD in swimming at the Paris Olympics that our esteemed parks director Andy Rodriguez would announce: City of Saint Paul announces free youth swimming lessons!
* The Daily Dirge download
Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald hosted the “Bad Luck Ball” at the University Club on January 13, 1922. At the party, Scott and Zelda passed out copies of a satirical newspaper they wrote called the St. Paul Daily Dirge. Think of it as the Summit Ave. version of The Onion. This article was researched and written for our Bad Luck Ball’s Daily Dirge by board member Ann Folkman.